Funerals and Things

The more I read the gospels and listen carefully to Jesus, the more I begin to understand His mission. Obviously that is a bit of a no-brainer kind of conclusion, but I’m amazed at the clarity of Jesus, once I learn to read Him for who He is and not what my culture (both church and non-church) has often said about Him.

One of the words that seem to leap out at me these days is “intense.” Jesus was an intense man of God, who is utterly determined to humbly obey the mission given to Him by the Father. That intensity of purpose sometimes means that He pushed the envelope rather strongly at times.

A great example of that is the comment He makes to a would-be follower in Matthew 8:21, 22. “Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’” (NIV)  This one has stumped biblical studies scholars over the centuries at a variety of place. Is the man’s father already dead, and Jesus is saying “don’t even go to the funeral?” Or is the man’s father elderly, and the man is saying “It will be a while, I have to wait until my father is dead and buried?”

Either way, Jesus is pushing pretty radically. Jewish expectations were for sons, especially if this man is the eldest son, to take care of aging fathers and bury them properly. Jesus is saying, if taken at face value, “Don’t worry about that stuff.”

Then,  is the first “dead” describing a person physically dead or spiritually dead? Most things I’ve read suggest that it is spiritually dead, as in, “let the spiritually dead take care of the physically dead people.” Some have even suggested that Jesus is saying something like “let the burier of the dead take care of burying the dead.” 

We could probably take Jesus in a kind of hyper-literalism here and miss the point. Jesus Himself gives John instructions about taking care of His mother in John 19:25ff. I can’t find any other place where He expects of us what He isn’t willing to do Himself. This verse surely isn’t suggesting that Jesus is some kind of hard-hearted tyrant who doesn’t even care about the death of one’s father.

But, if the point Jesus is trying to make is that following Him means absolute allegiance, then He could not have picked a better way to make that point. Few relationships would have been more intense in that day than a son to his father, yet even that relationship cannot stand in the way of our allegiance to Him.

In Luke’s parallel account of these words, he adds the phrase, “go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60) Jesus is not calling for allegiance for the mere sake of allegiance. He wants those who follow Him to clearly get what is at stake – and that has to do with proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom. 

  

So, this really ranks among the more intense things Jesus ever said. And it demands a kind of allegiance that is sometimes hard to offer. I’ve never been disappointed by offering Him that as best I can!

It's My Party

In 1963, an American singer named Lesley Gore reached the top of the charts with her song, It’s My Party. The song tells the all-too familiar story of the breakup of “puppy love.” The heart of the lyrics declares, “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to . . . You would cry too if it happened to you.” What happened was  that a 16 year old girl was having a birthday, her boyfriend disappears for a while and when he shows back up, another girl, Judy, is wearing his ring. 

I’m not sure why, but that song has been floating around in my head for a while, but not quite in the same context of the song. Every time I start humming the tune and thinking about the words, I wonder whether or not Jesus might sing those words, with a tear or two running down His cheeks.

After all, it is His party. Gathering around Jesus, meeting in His name, is what the party is all about. He died a pretty violent death so that, in mysterious ways, people like me could come to the party. The party is such a transforming experience, that Paul insists the party really is “the body of Christ.” And that phrase is far more than a clever little metaphor Paul invented.

As a summary for his own approach to what it means to be at the party that belongs to Jesus, Paul declares, “we preach Christ, and Him crucified.” He would not market the gospel of Jesus to the signs mentality of the Jews, nor the worldview demands of the Greeks. We preach Jesus. Period. (1 Cor. 1:18-25)

Oddly, it seems that it is sometimes difficult to let it be Jesus’ party. We don’t quite say that so directly, but it is such a simple step from “Jesus. Period” to “Jesus. And . . .” With a kind of decontextualizing of a phrase or two out of the Bible, often a very radical way of proof texting is  born where it never is “Jesus. Period” and always is “Jesus and my pet issues.”

I continue to be intrigued when I think about Paul’s letters to the believers in Galatia and those in Corinth. The Galatians seems to have life figured out pretty well. We would certainly see them as “doctrinally conservative” and notice that apparently the moral issues in their fellowships weren’t serious. They would be prime candidates for the old Moral Majority and the Right to Life way of following Jesus. They did have a theological challenge when it comes to the relationship of faith and works, but all-in-all, they look like “our kind of people.”

But you don’t even have to read carefully to realize that the believers in Corinth have moral, sociological, theological, and just about any other kind of problem you can think about. From the “I’m more spiritual than you are because of who baptized me” to what seems to be confusion about the resurrection of Jesus – and lots of points between – they are struggling.

Yet, in Galatians, Paul uniquely omits his typical opening thanksgiving statement, and on two occasions, calls them “foolish.” But 1 Corinthians we find what could be Paul’s most eloquent thanksgiving opening for his epistles, and he regularly calls them “brothers and sisters.” 

The Galatians were saying, to speculate a bit, “It’s Jesus and . . .” The Corinthians might have been saying, “It’s Jesus, help us figure that out together.”  Despite what appear to be some personal conflicts between Paul and some of the Corinthians, he seems much more comfortable with the Corinthians than he does the Galatians. But honesty compels me to admit that it is so much more comfortable to be around the “Jesus and . . .” from Galatia than it is the guy at Corinth living such an immoral life, or the people in Corinth confused about meat sacrificed to idols, etc.

Just recently, a friend told me that he always thinks he has to “defend” his desire to be forgiving and welcoming to sinners. The spirit of Galatia lives on, while the struggles of Corinth get ignored, because we are afraid of “the spirit of Galatia” and its criticism. 

Having spent nearly all of my adult life studying Scripture, studying theology, reading and reading all sorts of related things, and preaching sermons and teaching college students in the U.S. and abroad, I have at least a minimally competent understanding of “doctrine.” And I can talk reasonably intelligently about biblical morals and values. 

But in the end, the priority is Jesus. Period. The civic Jesus of right-wing political values is not always the Jesus of Scripture. Yet in so many contexts, unless you and I talk about the hot moral issues of our day, like homosexuality, abortion, genetic research, to name a few, in exactly the same way – you might not think I’m Christian. And unless we talk about biblical doctrines in exactly the same way, you might not think I’m Christian. And the spirit of Galatia lives!

If Jesus were to come down for a private visit this afternoon, I hope and pray He wouldn’t start the conversation with “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to . . . You would cry too if it happened to you.”

The End of the Earth and The End of the Ages

In Matthew’s account of the final words of Jesus before He ascended, followers of Jesus are commissioned to be disciple makers and teachers “to the end of the age.” When Luke talks about this event in the opening pages of Acts, we are to be His witnesses “to the end of the earth.”

Matthew’s expression “end of age” appears five times in his account of Jesus’ life (13:39, 13:40, 13:49; 24:3; and 28:20) and seems to suggest something like “the consummation of the age of the kingdom of God on earth.”  The phrase is used only one other time in the New Testament – in Hebrews 9:26 – where the author of Hebrews uses it to describe the “once and for all” sacrifice of Christ in taking away sin.

Luke’s expression, “to the end of the earth” appears to describe whatever part of the world that lays beyond “Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.” Most of the book of Acts tells the beginning of how the gospel would impact “the end of the earth.” There are some exciting stories of what happens when the Jesus story is told in a variety of cultural contexts.

When you start thinking about all of this together, it makes you think that until, in God’s sense of time, “the consummation of the age” and “the end of the earth” somehow cross paths, the mission to disciple, to teach, and to bear witness to the Jesus story remains in place. To say that more bluntly, what Jesus began when, in the words of Hebrews 9, He came once and for all to deal with the problem of sin, continues to be the basis of our disciple making, our teaching, and our witness to the world. 

Despite the proclivity of the television preachers to know more about when “the end of the age” and the “end of the earth” will actually cross paths than Jesus did (see Mark 13:32,32), our mission continues. Living “in between” the time of His coming to rescue the world from the power of sin and death and His glorious reappearing at the end of the age and the ends of the earth, we have been “transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son.” (Colossians 1:13) Surely that rescue and transfer was not for us to just sit around and keep a secret.

 The work we have been blessed to participate in by God remains unfinished. Until we reach the end of the earth and until God decides that it is time for the consummation of the Kingdom, we have a mission. It is a mission that is characterized by disciple making, by teaching, and by bearing witness. It is an invitation to be a part of what God is doing through the body of Christ, even to this day. When Paul reminded the Corinthian believers that “we are ambassadors for Christ” he did so with the reminder that “God is making His appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)

The “embassy” is still open, and our task as ambassadors is still unfinished!  In August, 2000, I was in Albania, teaching a group of believers on behalf of Seminary of the Nations. A friend I made in Albania was driving me around, showing me his country. We drove by the United States embassy, and as he told me what the building was, I couldn’t help but notice that it was boarded up. When I inquired about that, he replied, “It’s not safe for Americans to be here right now!” That was a bit of a sobering moment, but I like living on the edge a bit.

It makes me wonder if sometimes it doesn’t appear that, out of fear of our surroundings, the church has “boarded up the embassy” and called the “ambassadors” home. Corralled up in our little safe havens, we dare not venture too far beyond the safety of the wrought iron fence and require the right ID card at the gate.

Until “the end of the earth” and “the end of the ages” cross paths, the embassy needs to be open – our mission is yet unfinished.  God’s appeal can’t be heard through boarded up embassies.

Train Wrecks and Websites

What is there about disasters that draw our attention in ways that can only be described as “staring.” When I listen to the traffic reports in Atlanta every morning, it isn’t unusual to hear Capt. Herb, the more famous of the traffic reporters, to complain about “rubberneckers.” Those are the people on the other side of the interstate, unaffected by the accident on the opposing lanes, but who back up traffic as they slowdown “to take a look.” In the name of full disclosure, I’ve caught myself doing that very thing a time or two, or maybe more.

I wonder, as I watch the major networks, along with CNN, MSNBC, and Fox covering the most recent tragedy – the tornado in Oklahoma – if we need to keep staring at the same images. But apparently we do, or surely they would move on to something else. I understand the need to be aware – in hope that awareness produces help – but does that mean around the clock coverage? And do reporters really have to ask an elementary school kid about how he felt when he learned that some of his classmates had been killed by the storm?

But it isn’t just tragedies – at least not of the car wreck or tornado kind – that draw us in in ways that are surely unhealthy. Our culture is drawn to violence and sexual misconduct in movies in record setting ways. We watch mayhem being elevated to the norm and can’t seem to turn our heads. An NFL team has recently been seriously impacted by the fact that they apparently put out “bounties” on opposing players – but empty seats at an NFL game seems to be an oxymoron. 

But even that isn’t all there is to this phenomenon. Websites that portray every kind of human suffering are making millions attracting us to them. Video games, where violence and sexual assault are the norm, are huge attractions for young adults, especially males, in our culture. A study I recently read suggested that the average male college graduate would spend far more time either watching internet pornography or playing violent video games than he would on studying.

But there's more. Somehow I became a member of a closed Facebook group for preachers – I’m sure how a Facebook group is formed or closed, and not completely sure how I became a member. Every time I look at it I wonder, “What is the attraction here?” Most of the posts are either sectarian rants about “everyone but us is without hope:” or “no one preaches – even most of “us” – the Bible anymore;” or some similar sense of tragic hopelessness from “the church I serve is awful” to “the current government in the US is a disaster.”

  

I keep telling myself I will quit looking at this site, but I find myself “rubbernecking” a bit. The so-called “information age” has created serious challenges to any who would read Paul’s words to the believers in Philippi – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8, NIV) Too much rubbernecking can create snarls far worse than a traffic backup.

Pentecost

This coming Sunday, May 19, is Pentecost Sunday on the Christian Calendar. The fifty days after Easter have quickly passed by and it seems impossible that we are already nearly two months beyond that great day of celebration in the family of God.

Acts 2 is the place in Scripture where many Christians will find themselves next Sunday. And what a great chapter it is! It is hard to determine what is most important in that chapter! From the coming of the Holy Spirit, to Peter’s sermon, the response of 3000 people who were baptized (perhaps just counting men), to the earliest description of what the earliest church looked like in 2:42 through the end of the chapter.

It interests me that prior to chapter two, the apostles – now back to twelve in number with the selection of Mathias – seem to be frightened men who wondered whether or not what happened to Jesus could very well happen to them. But something happened on Pentecost that changed them forever!

Luke’s story in Acts 2 suggests that each of them was out on the streets of Jesus preaching a message that could be summarized with “this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ.” In the “video that plays in my head” when I read this text, I would like to think that Peter was standing right under the corner window of the High Priest’s office, preaching his heart out.

But think about what is happening. These men have spent about 40 days interacting with the risen Christ. Yet in Acts 1:6-8, their last question to Jesus is “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Apparently, even 40 days with the risen Christ hasn’t broken through their cultural worldview that the Messiah was all about Israel, the political and geographical nation of which they were a part. 

But on Pentecost, they get it! They understand that the Messiah is all about redemption – the opportunity to make things right with God. They understand that even those who crucified the Son of God can repent and be baptized, having their sins forgiven and receiving the promised gift of the Spirit. 

What happened? If you read the story Luke tells carefully, it seems that the only observable thing that happened was the coming of the Spirit. When the Spirit comes, they finally understand what it means to be a witness to Jesus “in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.” That begins what is best understood to be Luke’s story of the Holy Spirit led movement of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome – a movement that will happen in a single generation in an age without all the opportunities we have in terms of communication, travel, and a whole host of other “modern conveniences.” Acts, if read as the narrative Luke intends it to be rather than an opportunity to proof-text all kinds of theological conclusions, is really an exciting story.

Apparently Jesus was serious when, in John 16, He promised that when the Spirit came, he would “convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.” And that idea is what makes Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 12 sensible when he reminds us that no one can confess that Jesus is Lord apart from the Spirit. 

I don’t want to sound “too charismatic” in the common misuse of that important biblical term, but the simple truth is that the Spirit was sent to bear witness of Jesus – and that witness is a convicting ministry to “the world.” Even though Luke’s description of the Spirit’s gift to the apostles at Pentecost seems to be a unique outpouring of the Spirit, the idea that we can transform the world without the Spirit’s convicting work borders on a kind of arrogance that is heresy. The right response to the abuse of the biblical doctrine of the Spirit and His ministry is not to pretend like He doesn’t exist, or if He does, He does so only in Scripture.

Perhaps on Pentecost Sunday, we might think a moment or two about our own desperate need of the Spirit’s ministry of conviction, regeneration, sanctification, and equipping for ministry. Who knows what would happen to the church if we did – we might write another Acts narrative!